How is this possible? It truly feels like yesterday that this sweet little redhead was born. And now we are looking the end of her first decade in the eye.

Sigh.

So when this sweet one, who also happens to be mommy’s biggest fan, was asked what she wanted for her birthday cake this year and she replied (with a gleam in her eye) that she “had a challenge” for me, I knew this would be good.

Her requested theme? “A watermelon sleepover”.

So, you know what? The girl got a watermelon sleepover!

The party itself was adorable! Watermelon balloons, plates and favors, along with various other pink, red and green details.

I decided to satisfy my need for a “pretty” cake with the actual cake, and use the decorations to create the sleepover portion of the theme. Since she was only having a couple of friends over and the cake size would need to be small, I opted to put the characters on the board instead of the cake.

I wanted to give my #1 fan an awesome sleepover cake, so I took it one step further and created the hand-modeled characters to actually resemble her best friend and cousin, the two sleepover guests at her party!

The characters are created out of fondant, and I used a brand new (unused) dish scrubber to give a sort of carpet texture to the fondant on the board.

I hand-painted the entire cake itself, and I put together the video tutorial below to show how I created the top watermelon tier!

My sweet girl was so thrilled when she saw her cake! Creating my own kids’ birthday cakes bring me so much joy!

The Tiffany & Co. box is a long-standing symbol of elegance and class. For this reason, Tiffany & Co. inspired cakes are a popular and often-requested theme, especially for bridal showers and the like.

I was approached to create a small Tiffany box cake to be central on a bridal shower dessert table. The excitement of a first-time theme drew my interest immediately, as it always does… especially with it being one so prominent on Pinterest and other online communities.

One thing that most excited me in planning this cake was my client’s request for size – this cake was to be 4″. I really enjoy when cakes are ordered in the size best suited for their design and, as a Tiffany box is often small and square, this was perfect.

In order for the ribbon to catch your eye, I used super pearl dust to give it some shine and a satin-like appearance.

The beautiful lace-like look of the cake board happened by complete accident. That will have to be a story for another day. 😉 The inside of this cake was delicious dark chocolate with creamy dark chocolate ganache filling.

My hope is that I was successful in providing the bride-to-be and her special ladies with a beautiful and decadent centerpiece for their memorable event.